Darren Watkins Jr., popularly known as IShowSpeed or Speed, an American YouTuber and social media personality, speaking recently revealed that he became a Millionaire aged Sixteen.
IShowSpeed’s current net worth is estimated to be around $10 million.
Speed first made a name for himself as a gaming YouTuber and was quickly recognized for his live streams. Though Speed rose to fame following the pandemic, he registered his YouTube channel in 2016, where it was inactive for two years until Speed uploaded his first video, which was an NBA 2k18 shoot-around clip.
The same year, owing to the popularity of Fortnite, Speed tried his hand at the game and tried doing a live stream which did not find a lot of success. Disheartened by this slow start, Speed decided to put his YouTube career on hold and focus on school and playing football for the next couple of years.
Following the pandemic, with nothing else to do and a lot of time on his hands, he decided to give YouTube another shot after being persuaded by a friend.
Speed yet again chose to start with NBA content and this time quickly started gaining attention, being one of the handful of streamers making quality NBA 2k20 and 2k21 content.
He gained over 150 subscribers weekly, a figure which went up to 1000 subscribers as reported by multiple sources.
Soon, Speed started diversifying his content and played Fortnite and Five Nights at Freddy’s, which made his content more live streams centric. In less than a year, Speed managed to amass over 1 million subscribers in June 2021, making him one of the fastest-growing YouTubers in the world.
He became even more popular following his virality on social media apps like TikTok, where his fan base started uploading snippets of his live streams, which became viral in their own right.
Following his success, Speed subsequently moved to Los Angeles with popular Twitch streamer Adin Ross, and his appearances in Ross’s streams helped him gain even more subscribers.
Currently, Speed seems to be focusing on his music career, having released his debut album, What Else IShowSpeed, which features a lot of the music videos on his channel with most them being viewed over 10 million times.
Speed makes most of his $10 million valuation from his YouTube channels and their subsequent revenue from AdSense. Apart from that, Speed earns a decent amount from sponsorships as well as any tips and donations he may receive from his viewers while live-streaming.
Speed has stated, depending on the duration of his streams, he can earn anywhere between $75-$200 per upload. IShowSpeed earns an estimated $16,000 every month on average through revenue via AdSense.
IShowSpeed earns an estimated $1.11 million per year from his channel's AdSense factoring that he averages 8.43 million views a month, and around 614.38 thousand views a day. Based on the average amount of $3-$7 that is paid per thousand views, the IShowSpeed YouTube channel can generate an estimated $73,000 thousand a month and over $1 - 3 million a year in ad revenue. Other sources, state Speed earns an average of somewhere near $2- 4 million each year from YouTube alone.
On TikTok, Speed could earn upwards of $15k per post. TikTok does not yet compensate its users for running ads on their posted photos, unlike YouTube, where you sell space on your videos and channel page for advertising at a rate determined by Google.
To achieve this, TikTok influencers and brands do not have an intermediary, or any set rates if they choose to work together. Depending on the circumstances, brands make deals with influencers, and prices can vary greatly, but this estimated earning per post is considered to be nearly accurate.
With the tremendous following that speed has accumulated over the years, brands could approach him to promote their products.
Speed has associated himself with numerous top internet brands. Currently, it is unknown how much he could charge for promotional content, but we definitely assume that it’s a hefty Amount.
